Wimbledon Junior Acceptances Feature Alina Korneeva, Eight US Girls and Six US Boys; Four Americans Expected to Compete in Second Annual Wimbledon 14U Event; Women's ITA Kickoff Weekend Draft Complete, Men's Draft Thursday

The juniors and U14s compete in the shadow of Centre Court

The acceptances for the 2023 Wimbledon Junior Championships were released today, and I'm happy to see that Alina Korneeva, who won the girls title at the Australian Open in January and Roland Garros last week, has entered. For the first time since 1990, a girl will come into Wimbledon having won the first two junior slams, provided, of course, that she does not withdraw. She is playing a ITF Women's Tennis Tour $60K in Rome on clay this week and has advanced to the second round.

Nine of the top 10 girls have entered, with the only one absent No. 6 Mirra Andreeva, who is currently 101 in the WTA rankings and is probably done with junior tennis. The notables who did not enter are three other Russian girls in the Top 50 and US Open girls champion Alexandra Eala of the Philippines, currently No. 39 in the ITF junior rankings and 228 in the WTA rankings. Wimbledon girls champion Liv Hovde is also age eligible and could have received entry based on her WTA ranking, but she has not played a junior event since turning pro last fall.

Nikola Bartunkova of the Czech Republic received entry based on her Top 400 WTA ranking; she is currently 343. The girls main draw acceptance cutoff was 50; it was 49 for Roland Garros.

The US girls entered are Clervie Ngounoue, who did not play Wimbledon Juniors last year due to injury, Kaitlin Quevedo, Iva Jovic, Tyra Grant, Tatum Evans, Ariana Pursoo, Valeria Ray and Mia Slama. US girls in qualifying are Alexia Harmon, Theadora Rabman, Ashton Bowers, Alanis Hamilton and Anya Murthy. The qualifying cutoff was 81, with Taylah Preston of Australia getting into qualifying based on her Top 500 WTA ranking.

The boys are missing quite a few of the top players, with No. 1 Alexander Blockx of Belgium not entered, along with Learner Tien(who told me last month it was doubtful he would play the Wimbledon Juniors again, as he did play it last year and reached the quarterfinals), US Open boys champion Martin Landaluce of Spain, who hasn't played a junior tournament since winning the title in New York and, and last week's champion Dino Prizmic of Croatia, who said Roland Garros was his last junior event.

As he did at Roland Garros, Kyle Kang received main draw entry based on his ATP Top 750 ranking; it is now up to 591. The cutoff for the main draw was 49 and for qualifying 77.

The Americans in the main draw are Cooper Williams, Darwin Blanch, Roy Horovitz, Kaylun Bigun, Alexander Razeghi and Kang. US boys in qualifying are Alexander Frusina, Maxwell Exsted and Cooper Woestendick.

I heard earlier this month that the Wimbledon 14U tournament will take place again this year after the success of the inaugural event in 2022, with the same number of players. Last year two American boys, Keaton Hance and Carel Ngounoue, and one American girl, Nicole Okhtenberg, participated, with Hance and Okhtenberg receiving entry based on their performance at the Easter Bowl. The Easter Bowl tournament did not serve as a qualifying event this year, but four Americans have been invited: Marcel Latak, Izyan Ahmad, Annika Penickova and Kristina Penickova. USTA National Coach Jon Glover is also attending the event. I'm a bit surprised Jordan Lee isn't going; he won a Tennis Europe Category 1 last month, but he is a 2010 birth year, so would be able to compete next year.

Here are some details:

In terms of the 14U Championships, the draw size is the same as last year (16) and we will be continuing with just Singles. Matches will be played from Thursday 13 July – Sunday 16 July, and the players will have the opportunity to practice for three days prior at our Roehampton Grounds.

 

Following a review of the 2022 competition, and the desire by the AELTC to ensure the very best 14&U players compete in the competition, the entry criteria was refined for 2023.

The new hybrid model will see the first eight places offered to top-ranked players in that age category, with the remaining places awarded via a number of qualifying tournaments.

Entry Criteria	Number of places
Top 14&U ranked players	8
Asian grass court tournament, Saga Club, Japan	2
South American grass court tournament Copa Cosat, Brazil	2
Tennis Europe Roehampton, UK	1
Tennis Australia 14u Australian Championships Wodonga Tennis Centre	1
LTA Qualification Tournament LTA Grade 1 East Glos, UK	2

 

Regarding the selection of the top ranked players, the following criteria was taken into consideration (as of March 31):

• WTN Ranking
• UTR Ranking
• Tennis Europe Ranking 
• Results at leading 14&U International Tournaments including Les Petits As, Stockholm, Maia, Orange Bowl
• Any other relevant criteria that the Professional Tennis Committee / 14&U Championships Referee deem fit

 

The Roehampton tournament is being played this week, with results available at the Tennis Europe site.

I'll be covering both the Wimbledon Junior Championships and the Wimbledon U14 tournament in person again this year.

The ITA Kickoff Weekend isn't until the last week of January, but the women's draft took place today, with teams outside the Top 15 deciding six months in advance where they will be traveling for the regionals. I have always loved this concept, where coaches can decide their destination based on travel, facilities and projected strength, but I do wish the draft was held later in the summer or in the fall, when these choices would be based on much more accurate information.  

No. 16 Miami, the highest team not to host a regional and therefore the first team to select a destination, chose No. 14 Tennessee. Knoxville should be a highly competitive regional, with all four teams in the Top 30: Miami, Southern Cal[25] and Vanderbilt[30].

The other two regionals with four Top 30 teams are No. 10 Ohio State, which includes Kansas[23], Arizona State[26] and Notre Dame[28] and No. 8 Iowa State, which has UCLA[18], Oklahoma State[19] and Old Dominion[29].

No. 21 Washington is hosting again, so they are automatically in; No. 54 Boston College and No. 59 Nebraska were eligible but did not participate; No. 47 Syracuse passed.

The final women's draft board can be found here.

The men's Kickoff Weekend draft begins Thursday at noon EDT. The draft order is available here.